This invention relates to the filed of document structures and printing methods, and more particularly to document structures and methods of printing documents having machine readable security information and security features.
It is often desirable to obtain information from documents in addition to the human readable information printed on the surface of the document. For instance, documents of many types are susceptible to tampering, alteration and counterfeiting. Lottery tickets for probability games are an example of a document which is particularly susceptible to tampering. A probability game lottery ticket normally has play areas, each containing play indicia covered by an opaque material, for example a latex material. To play the game, an individual scratches off the latex covering a specified number of the play areas to reveal the play indicia underneath. The player then determines if the combination of revealed play indicia is a winner such as the play indicia are all the same symbol or add up to a winning number.
Part of the popularity of such probability games is derived from the fact that each and every ticket is a potential winner. If a player has lost, that at least one winning combination is present. Consequently, this type of game is generally perceived by lottery players as being more legitimate than other types of instant lottery games.
The fact that every ticket is potentially a winner also invites players to tamper with the tickets. Because every ticket can win if the right play areas are selected, some players look for ways to determine the play indicia contained in every play area in order to identify the location of a winning combination. If the player can conceal the fact that he has seen the play indicia, the player subsequently can remove the latex covering from the play areas containing the winning combination and claim a prize.
One technique used to accomplish this result involves lifting the latex to look at the play indicia before gluing the latex back into place. Typically, probability game lottery tickets are validated by the visual observation of a human lottery agent. It can be difficult to visually detect this sort of tampering. Thus, probability game lottery tickets are particularly susceptible to fraudulent tampering and because no effective way of preventing or detecting such tampering has been developed, probability lottery games have not become commercially successful.
A second threat to the integrity of a document is the intentional alteration of its contents. For example, an individual may try to alter the information on a driver""s license, contract, test answer form, invoice or inventory form. Such an alteration may involve the changing of a number in the document by removing the original number and inserting a new number. In the case of laminated documents, such as drivers licenses, the document can be delaminated and the driver""s photograph can be replaced with the photograph of another person and the license relaminated. Such alterations can be very difficult to detect, especially if there are no other copies of the document.
A third type of problem posed in the document security context involves counterfeiting. Rather than altering an existing document, the counterfeiter actually creates a document and attempts to pass it off as being genuine. Thus, paper currency, tickets, tags, and labels are often counterfeited and proffered as the real thing. The magnitude of this problem has substantially increased with the advent of the color photo copier.
For example, the owner of a trademark might sell t-shirts bearing that trademark to increase the value of the shirt. In an attempt to thwart pirates, the trademark owner might also attach a identifying tag to the t-shirts. This makes it easier to determine whether a given t-shirt is genuine. In order to disguise the fact that t-shirts are counterfeits, a counterfeiter will reproduce not only the t-shirt""s design, but also the tag. While being forced to create a similar looking tag will increase his costs, if the value of the trademark is sufficiently high, the counterfeiter will continue to attach a counterfeited tag.
There have been a number of techniques developed to improve the security of printed documents including the addition of magnetic materials to the document which are magnetically encoded with information that can be used to verify its authenticity. However, magnetically encoded information can in many instances be easily detected, read and altered and thus is not always suitable for verifying the integrity of a document and as such is generally not suitable for lottery tickets and probability tickets in particular. Another disadvantage of magnetically encoding information on a document, is that alterations to the magnetically encoded information are not generally detectable. Other methods for verifying the integrity of lottery tickets have been used such as inks that change color when tampered with but none of these methods have been sufficiently secure to permit the commercial sale of probability tickets.
There have also been a number of techniques developed for using electrical circuits in documents to represent information. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,699,311, 5,471,040 and 5,484,292. However, these documents suffer from a number of disadvantages including being expensive to manufacture and the delectability of the circuits in the document.
Hence, it is desirable to provide an improved system for obtaining information from documents to discourage tampering, alteration and counterfeiting.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a document structure and method of printing same that will provide for increased security as well as permitting information to be automatically read from the ticket.
Another object of the invention is to provide a lottery ticket structure and method of printing same that will result in a lottery ticket having sufficient security to be used as a probability ticket.
A further object of the invention is to provide a game ticket which includes a substrate, play indicia printed over the substrate and a scratch-off coating covering the play indicia which includes at least one electronic circuit element printed in conductive ink on the ticket. The electronic circuits can be printed over the play indicia and beneath the scratch-off coating. To improve security, the ticket includes an opaque blocking layer having a conductivity less than the circuit element. In this case, the game ticket can also include a seal coat applied over the play indicia and a release coat applied over the seal coat and below the electronic circuit elements to facilitate the removal of the electronic circuits when the scratch-off coating is removed or tampered with.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a game ticket that includes a substrate, an integrity electronic circuit or circuits printed on the substrate, a primer layer printed over the first electronic circuits, play indicia printed on the primer layer, seal and release coats printed over said play indicia and a scratch-off coating printed over the release coat. An printed indicia electronic circuit or circuits can be located between the seal and release coats over the play indica. One or more opaque blocking layers can be printed between the substrate and the scratch-off coating. Also, in the case where a bar code is printed on the lottery ticket, the integrity electronic circuit can be located underneath the bar code and extend to one or more of the play indicia.
Another object of the invention is to provide a game ticket having a substrate, a number of play indicia and a circuit element printed over the paper substrate having two capacitive pick-up areas connected by a resistive element where the resistive element is located under the play indicia. The resistive element can be printed with two layers of conductive ink. Also, the resistive element can be configured as a serpentine track.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a document having a paper substrate, a number of play indicia, a printed circuit element having two capacitive pick-up areas connected by a resistive element. The resistive element can function as a stigmatization element. A conductive calibration line can also be printed on the document.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a data card having a substrate, a number of data areas each covered by a release coat, circuit elements printed over the release coats on the data areas and a scratch-off coating applied to the circuit elements.
A further object of the invention is to provide a laminated document having an information document and a circuit element located between the laminates. The document can include one or more of the circuit elements located between the information document and the laminates.
These and other objects are accomplished by the present invention which is directed to a method for printing a document. In one embodiment of the invention, the method includes the steps of (1) selecting a marking medium that has a predetermined machine-readable characteristic, and (2) selecting a document substrate that is compatible with the predetermined machine-readable characteristic of the selected marking medium. An information symbol is secured to the selected document substrate. A security layer which includes the selected marking medium is also affixed to the document substrate so that the security layer is in at least partial register with the information symbol. The method can further include the step of affixing a blocking layer to the document substrate in at least partial register with the information symbol. The blocking layer can be affixed to the document substrate so that blocking layer is intermediate the information symbol and the security layer or so that the security layer is intermediate the information symbol and the blocking layer.
In a second embodiment of the invention, the method includes the steps of (1) selecting a first marking medium that has a first pre-determined machine-readable characteristic; (2) selecting a second marking medium that has a second pre-determined machine-readable characteristic; and (3) selecting a document substrate which is compatible with both the first pre-determined machine-readable characteristic and the second pre-determined machine-readable characteristic. The document substrate is apportioned into at least a first portion and a second portion and a first information symbol is secured to the document substrate within the first portion. A first security layer that includes the first selected marking medium is also affixed to the first portion of the document substrate so that the first security layer is in at least partial register with the first information symbol. The method can also include the step of affixing a blocking layer to the document substrate in at least partial register with the first information symbol. The blocking layer can be affixed to the document substrate so that blocking layer is intermediate the first information symbol and the security layer or so that the security layer is intermediate the first information symbol and the blocking layer. The method can also include the step of affixing a second security layer that includes the second selected marking medium to the second portion of the document substrate so that the second security layer is in at least partial register with the second information symbol.
A third embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for forming a lottery ticket. The method includes the steps of (1) selecting a first marking medium that has a first pre-determined machine-readable characteristic; (2) selecting a second marking medium that has a second predetermined machine-readable characteristic; and (3) selecting a ticket substrate which is compatible with both the first pre-determined machine-readable characteristic and the second pre-determined machine-readable characteristic. The ticket substrate is apportioned into at least a first portion and a second portion. A play symbol is printed over the ticket substrate within the first portion and a bar code is printed over the ticket substrate within the second portion. A first security layer that includes the first marking medium is affixed to the first portion of the ticket substrate, in at least partial register with the play symbol. The first security layer, which is removable by a player from the ticket substrate, is affixed to the ticket substrate so that the play symbol is intermediate the ticket substrate and the first security layer. The method can also include the step of securing a second security layer which includes the second selected marking medium to the second portion of the ticket substrate, in at least partial register with the bar code.
Inks that can be printed with conventional printing methods, such as intaglio printing, screen printing, relief printing, planographic printing, letterpress printing, and flexographic printing, are especially useful as any of the selected marking media. The ink used is chosen for a particular machine-readable characteristic such as dry-state conductance, fluorescence, optical density, reflectance, and scattering. For example, an ink which has a known, measurable conductance in a dry-state can be used to print conductive layers on the document which serve as security layers.